


A Sea Change

by ivy



Category: Kushiel's Legacy - Jacqueline Carey
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Fix-It, Healing Magic, Yuletide, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-20
Updated: 2013-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:30:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivy/pseuds/ivy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If the Ch'in delegation had arrived later, then Moirin would have been in Terre d'Ange in time for Desirée's bith. Fix-it AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sea Change

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phantom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom/gifts).



> Please see endnotes for content notes.

In one feverish dream, I dreamt that I sailed from Terre d'Ange in the spring. For months I sailed on a behemoth of a ship nothing like Captain Renniel's, with unfamiliar companions. And I dreamt I left my father, left Jehanne, left Thierry and Noémie and Daniel in search of my destiny.

I woke because one of the Queen's maids was shaking my arm. 

For a moment I was disoriented, staring at the lit taper in her hands. In the flickering shadows it threw on the walls, I saw the flickering waves on an endless sea. It had looked so much like the water that the Maghuin Dhonn had shown me, past the stone doorway. It looked so much like my dream.

Then she spoke and my eyes focused properly on the conscious world, recalling me to myself. I squinted at the bright light.

"Lady Moirin, you must come," she said. The taper's flame wavered. 

"What's wrong?" I looked around my room and felt for the heartbeats and living things around me. The plants of my room breathed in and out luxuriously, enjoying the warmth of the indoors and the sudden appearance of light. In adjoining rooms, there were either no occupants or they breathed deeply in sleep; the stone walls of the Palace limited the rest of my senses, but nothing seemed amiss.

Then I looked at her again and realized she was the Queen's maid, and scrambled up. She flinched back, but I was scrabbling for something warm to put on. Jehanne. How could I have been so careless, to sleep so far tonight? "It's Jehanne, isn't it? Has the babe come now?"

She seemed relieved that I had realized so quickly. "That's it, ma'am, Raphael wants you to come quickly." She gave me a thick cloak that had been tucked under her arm, and I threw it on. 

"Is she in her rooms?" I didn't sleep all that far from Jehanne, but in this moment I cursed myself for not sleeping in an adjacent chamber. We thought she had more time. I had felt the child quicken almost as soon as she had been conceived, and it was early. I followed the maid out of the room.

The hallways outside the royal quarters were lit brilliantly and a few guards stood at either end, but otherwise there was no outward sign of something unusual. The guard standing outside the door gave us both an assessing glance. He skipped over the maid and took in me, with unshod feet, overlarge cloak, and a general look of disarray. The bear-witch, I could see him thinking. The shock had woken me up sharply, though, and I didn't pause. 

Jehanne was standing unsteadily beside the bed, leaning on Daniel for support. Raphael stood in front of her, speaking something, and she said something sharply back to him, the sweat sticking her pale hair to her face. The room was very warm. Several other people were crowded inside: a midwife, other handmaidens, perhaps. The maid who had brought me slipped away to attend to something else.

Neither Jehanne nor Raphael nor Daniel had seen me yet, but I was inwardly relieved to see that Jehanne was upright and still had the strength to argue. From the summons, I had assumed the worst. As I got closer I realized she was arguing with Raphael about lying down. 

"Please, my lady, it will make you steadier," he said, cajoling. He was looking down, but even from where I stood I saw that his face was at once bitter and anxious. Daniel stood silently beside Jehanne, not interfering. His face was pinched. 

I had never attended a birthing before, but my role here was not to be the midwife: there was another one in the room, and Raphael besides. Instead, I walked forward into both his and Jehanne's line of sight and Raphael snapped: "You've been long enough."

"Jehanne," I said, softly, and Jehanne's eyes snapped up to meet mine. 

"Don't look at me like that," she said, wavering a little. "I'm not an invalid yet."

"Standing and walking may make the babe come quicker," said the midwife, who was standing farther removed, obviously reluctant to come between Raphael and Jehanne's legendary temper. 

"No, you're not," I agreed, and touched her hand gently. Raphael was scowling. I was there for support, like Daniel; the bursts of power that Raphael could harness were not needed.

We took shifts with Jehanne, walking endless circles around the bedchamber together, while the others rested. It must have been noon when the child was born, looking red and unhappy to be out in the world so early.

And then Jehanne began to bleed. 

When I was a child in the wilderness of Alba, I bled from injuries--I fell and scraped knees and hands on rocks and tree bark. The memory that Old Nemed had taken from me, tripping onto the stake, had left a prominent whitish scar that had never gone away. I had killed rabbits for the pot and skinned them to eat. I had seen blood. 

But the blood that came from Jehanne horrified me like the others had not.

"Moirin, come here." I squeezed Jehanne's hand once, hard, and crouched next to Raphael, who had laid a hand on Jehanne's stomach. Warm blood oozed on to the counterpane and stained her thighs bright red. Without looking at me, he gripped my forearm. Jehanne was breathing shallowly, but she spoke as lightly as ever. "Is it as bad as it seems?" she inquired.

I shook my head automatically, but it made me dizzy as I felt Raphael call power out of me. Energy, power, chi--whatever it was, it was being drained from me. I threw away Master Lo's teaching about conservation, his warnings. This was Jehanne. She was hemorrhaging before my eyes, and I could not hold part of me back, if it could save her. Raphael's hand clutched convulsively on mine. Through bleary eyes I watched Jehanne, who had lain back onto the pillows and shut her eyes. 

Raphael released me abruptly. Fighting shakiness, I looked down at the bedsheets, but I couldn't tell if the blood was new; it was as red as before. Raphael was using his free hand to wipe his forehead. 

"It's healed," he said to Jehanne. His voice was the softest I'd heard it. 

"I want my daughter," said Jehanne. Her eyes rested a moment on Raphael and then went to Daniel, who was holding the tiny child. Feeling dizzy still and as though I was intruding, I stumbled toward the door. 

Out in the coldness of the hall I leaned on the wall for a moment to regain my bearings. Raphael swept past me without a word.

\--

The announcement of a new princess went out in the morning but for the next day I was confined to bed. The rustle and quiet sounds of the plants in my room soothed me and I slept hours. The day after I tried to inquire about Jehanne and was turned away; she herself was busy for the next few days recovering, and neither guard looked well upon me.

The next morning I went again, and this time, they let me through. I knocked on Jehanne's room, and heard a muffled voice say something.

"It's me, Moirin," I said into the door. 

"Come in," she said, more clearly, and I pushed it open.

In apparent defiance of the physician's orders, Jehanne was out of bed, dressed warmly in a thick robe. Bright sunlight streamed in through the windows and patterned the enormous bed, which was covered in rumpled sheets. No one was in the room, not even the maids. 

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" The words fell out of my mouth without thinking.

She turned sparkling eyes on me. "Oh, don't be like Raphael," she chastised. "I'm not an invalid. Don't tell me you've come to visit me because you thought I was sick, witchling."

I smiled because it was Jehanne, and if she was pale, well, Jehanne was always pale. "No, I came to see you. And your daughter. Where's Desirée?"

Jehanne made a face. "They told me I needed rest and Desirée kept waking up because I was so restless. Daniel's with her in the other room." From her expression I guessed that was why she had dismissed everyone from the room. 

I looked around. A bowl of soup steamed gently on the cleared vanity table, looking untouched. A tiny crib, obviously for Desirée, had been pushed into the room and sat empty next to the bed. Jehanne herself was sitting in an elaborate armchair facing the hearth. Despite the warmth of the day, the fire was lit.

I sat in an unoccupied chair. "You don't seem to be getting much rest," I offered.

"I have been getting rest," said Jehanne irritably. "I've been sleeping hours and hours and no one will leave me alone about it." 

"It seems very empty here now," I observed. 

"I'm perishing tired of busybodies in here," said Jehanne. "Don't say you came to be one."

I teased, "No, I came to see your daughter. The court isn't talking of anything else." The circumstances of the birth hadn't spread. I doubted Raphael was keen to speak about it, and the midwife would have been told to keep silent.

"Are they?" She sounded pleased. "She'll cause as much trouble as me, so they should."

"I'm sure she will." 

"She's been very obedient so far, she didn't even cry all that much," said Jehanne reflectively. Her eyes were focused on the wall. 

"She's only a few days old. Is she sleeping now?" 

Jehanne nodded. I pulled my chair closer to her, careful to lift the chair legs out of the thick carpet. "Has Raphael been back?"

The look she flung at me was bitter, but she didn't try to get up. "Yes, he did. As my physician, because he said he couldn't trust anyone else to do it." Her beautiful mouth twisted. "That's why you came in the middle of the night, isn't it?"

I shifted in my seat, not wanting to say just how frightened I had been when her maid came to wake me up. "It is. But Jehanne, I think he only wants you to be--be well," I said awkwardly. I had seen more of Thierry and Balthasar than I had seen of Raphael since the disastrous Circle's meeting. 

"I promised Daniel I would give him up, and I did." She looked away. "And then this happened." 

"You can't control what happened. Jehanne, you might have died if he hadn't been here," I said. I touched her hand tentatively. It was icy cold. "And you didn't call for him, did you?"

"No, I didn't. Daniel thought it would be...prudent, if he were here. And he was right." Daniel had seen first-hand the resurrection of Lord Luchese, the very first time I had met him, I recalled. Little wonder he would have wanted us both by Jehanne's side.

"Then Raphael can hardly hold it against you," I said. I closed my fingers over hers, chafing our hands together. She was so very cold. "Are you sure you don't want a blanket?"

She nodded. "Can you get me one?" I snatched the first coverlet off the bed and draped it over her shoulders. She was wearing thick woolly slippers, I saw, when I tucked it around her feet. 

"I wanted a clean break," she said quietly. It was a little eerie, how subdued she was; Jehanne throughout her pregnancy had never lost the edge that had made her chambermaids cry. She had thrown things around my room on a few occasions too, though those had become more and more infrequent. I hoped Desirée and the final cessation of her relationship with Raphael might help her despondency.

But she seemed to shake herself out of it, and smiled at me again. "But you must tell me about what you've been doing with Master Lo Feng. Has he taught you to use your energy further? The wildest reports come to me."

"Ohh, that," I said. I fiddled with the edge of the coverlet. "He taught me to breathe, so that I wouldn't collapse and spend more than I could afford to. It's not something spectacular like the circle of Shalomon."

"You spoke of it to Daniel, but you never told me what happened in the Circle," said Jehanne. She leaned her head against the headrest and gave me a gimlet stare.

I squirmed under it. Unlike most, my lady Jehanne had never feared my magic, but I did not like revisiting that morning. Claire had died to keep me alive, even if she hadn't meant to. But Jehanne was clearly done with her topics of Desirée, Raphael, and the entire circumstances of birth, so I was obliged to make conversation. And though I had spoken a little bit of it to her, Jehanne had trod carefully around it, knowing it was too early. 

"What did Daniel already tell you?" 

"He said it would be better to hear from you. Half the maids think you killed Claire Fourcay yourself with your witching."

"I didn't! I--" The words caught in my throat. I had opened the gate and I could have, even at the last, chosen to break my word. It would have cost my magic and the presence of the Maghuin Dhonn, killed the spark of the _diadh-anam_ that burned in me still, but it would have avoided Focalor. The choice was mine, though my hand had been forced. Like Morwen before me, I had chosen every act.

"I know you didn't. What makes it out of the Court is hardly the truth. Go on." Jehanne had drawn her knees up, so that they made little round protrusions in the blanket, like a child listening to a new story.

"Raphael wanted me to use my magic to summon spirits. He--the Circle--wanted to make bargains with them. I agreed without even knowing the first time, but I kept doing it." I remembered now the guilt, wrapped up in the goings-on of elsewhere, tying me back into my bedamned promise to Raphael. "Some of them wanted knowledge, I think, pure knowledge. Raphael wanted to cure the sick. Then my father was--sick, and he extracted a promise from me."

"The one you wrote me about," Jehanne said. 

I exhaled. "I should have thought of it before. I could only think of being forsworn. Lianne Tremaine would have thought of it in an instant." 

"We can't all be poets." Jehanne cocked her head. "One gift is enough."

"Then I opened the door and let them call Focalor. And the chains they had to bind him didn't work and he broke free." I hesitated. This part I had told Daniel because Claire Fourcay's family should know, but I had never said it to anyone else. But Jehanne had confided in me; she had always trusted me. And she was listening, so I plunged ahead. "I tried to die, Jehanne. Then Focalor took the life of Claire and made me not die."

Except for a slight frown, she didn't seem too upset. "Why?"

I shrugged. "It would have made the door close. Focalor could have taken over the entire world." I described for her the way Focalor had spoken and the way he had broken the chains forged by Balric Maitland. How I hadn't been able to close the door, not without the intervention of Master Lo Feng and Bao. I kept to myself the glint in Raphael's eye, though. 

"That's more than you've spoken to me in a long time, Moirin," said Jehanne. 

I started to apologize and she cut in, "I meant we speak of my problems most of the time."

"That is what a companion to the queen does," I offered.

"But even a queen must learn to stand on her feet and offer the same to her companion," she said, shrewdly. 

There was a very soft knock at the door, and Jehanne rolled her eyes at me comically. She called: "Who is it?"

It was Daniel. He did not seem surprised to see me here, nor at Jehanne out of bed, but said: "I thought you might need some company. Desirée's sleeping now." He sat in the last unoccupied chair and smiled at me. "But it seems you are companioned already."

"Moirin has been telling me all her secrets about magic," said Jehanne. 

"I have," I agreed.

"Thank you for coming during Desirée's birth," Daniel said, ignoring the levity. "Only know that House Courcel is in your debt."

Embarrassed, I tried to demur, but Daniel shook his head and moved the conversation onto lighter subjects. We--the King of Terre d'Ange, the Queen, and a half-wild bear witch--certainly made strange company, but Jehanne cheered considerably. With the sun still climbing to noon, Daniel left to attend to state matters, and I curled up by Jehanne to speak.

I left with a kiss and a promise to come back in the morning, and banished from my thoughts the unsettling echo of seas for another time.

**Author's Note:**

> Additional content notes: childbirth, post-partum hemorrhage. I don't think it's particularly gory, but it is not offscreen.  
> Touches on Raphael/Jehanne and Jehanne/Daniel.
> 
> \--
> 
>  _All she had to do was stay._ I loved Jehanne and Moirin's relationship and was sad about what happened in _Curse_ \--your fix-it is my fix-it too, Phantom. Thierry can still go to Terra Nova with Raphael and everything! I wanted to see how Jehanne and Moirin's relationship would have developed.
> 
> Thanks go to [greenlily](http://archiveofourown.org/users/greenlily) who helped beta this really quickly! 
> 
> Happy yuletide, Phantom!


End file.
